Thursday, February 28, 2013

the beauty of music

Even in cloudy ol' England, burdened by the lived-up reputation of cold dreariness, live music provides a reason to get out and about. A friend and I made one such venture last weekend, and I could not have been more pleased with the result.

[Okay, that's actually a lie. I would have preferred to come out the experience with at least partial function of my vocal cords, but alas, ya can't win all the time.]

In any case, my recent trip to Birmingham was quite pleasant. I made the journey with a friend on Saturday, tickets in hand and excitement overflowing for that night's Lumineers show. To pass the day, we trekked around the old industrial town, popping in and out of various coffee shops, museums, and vintage shops. We rested our feet for a while at a free "Sax in the City" gig at Symphony Hall, which was lovely, but basically served to get us only more excited for live music a bit above the volunteer-community-band skill level (uhh, no offense?). We even stumbled across some rannnndom street art:

The reason for this intricate mosaik's presence on this Birmingham, UK side street, I know not.

Upon my brother's recommendation, we grabbed some Balti food for dinner. [[Because of the whole colonization thing, Indian food as many people know it was actually developed within UK borders, and Balti dishes apparently developed their popularity in Birmingham. Or something like that.]].
it tasted better than it looks...

With full stomachs and happy hearts, we made our way to the venue.



The young, Colorado-based crew lived up to my excitement, to say the least. Their talent and freshness was wholly enveloped by the crowd. My cheeks hurt by the end of the show from smiling so much. No lie.

My fave song was a tie:

Now, neither of the above are from our actual concert, AND neither of them are actually on their album (i.e. I'd never heard them before Saturday), but I have these videos playing on repeat nonetheless...

Part of the reason, I suspect, for the lack of videos from our particular show is because the band—most admirably, I think—gave a request that people put down their dang phones/cameras at the concert and just freakin enjoy the music. Here's their big radio hit, from the actual show I was at, with one such mention:



Here's another video from the show I was at...It's from the group's encore (in the crowd), and while I don't think the video captures the amazingness of the moment, it does capture something else: At the very beginning, if you look up to the balcony, straight ahead, I'm in the 2nd row in a pink-ish sweater. There's a point about ten seconds in, where the drummer has snatched someone's phone away [not visible], and I give a nice little Fox-esque fist pump in support of the move.



In a couple of weeks, Z (+friends) will join me as I make another concert-based excursion, this time to London to see The Avett Brothers.

So. Stoked.


Cheers,
M


2 comments:

  1. I saw you too! Great band. Thanks for sharing the music. I saw them on the Grammy's and its neat knowing you saw them live...in England!

    ReplyDelete